Alfa Romeo announces that they are back in the midfield of F1

Alfa Romeo may have left Bahrain with zero points, but team principal Frederic Vasseur was very encouraged by his performance at the 2021 season opener.

The Ferrari customer team was in a race throughout the 2020 season to avoid the low point and, along with Haas and Williams, was detached from the main battle in midfield.

But both Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi were just outside the points with P11 and P12 placements in Bahrain, and that gives Vasseur a lot of optimism for the next races on the calendar.

“Bahrain gave us a strong indication of the progress we have made over the past twelve months,” said Vasseur.

“We drove with authority, left the Alps and an Aston Martin behind us and landed on the rear of the other Aston.

“Although we left Bahrain with no points, we have regained our place in midfield – and the results will certainly come soon.

“We have shown that we can fight in and for the top ten and we can look at the rest of the season with optimism.

“It was an eventful race, although the low rate of wear and tear – only two failures – meant we had to stop working to get a spot in the points.

“However, we are very positive because we know that we can go to the next race in Imola in two weeks’ time to fight for a place in the top ten again.”

First checkered flag of the year. We did well and almost took a point away. Good bother guys.

RAI P11
GIO P12 # BahrainGP pic.twitter.com/rEM91dNcpd

– Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN (@alfaromeoracing) March 28, 2021

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Raikkonen also shared some of Vasseur’s optimism but was still frustrated at losing a top 10 spot after spending much of the race there.

“It wasn’t a bad race, we had some good fights and the car behaved well, but it is disappointing not to take home any points when we were in the top ten for most of the night,” added Raikkonen.

“If the race had been a few laps longer, we could probably have caught the cars in front, but we’ll keep trying.

“The car felt good as it was during testing. So it’s clear that we’ve made a step forward compared to last year: we still have to work a bit to close the gap with the top five teams, but we’re still fighting to find that little extra. “

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